CAMBRIDGE – Some of US President-elect Donald Trump’s nastiest attacks have been directed at China. He has accused it of “raping” the United States with its trade policies, and of creating global warming as a “hoax” to undermine US competitiveness. Why, then, are many Chinese policy advisers and commentators sanguine about future US-China relations?

The reasoning seems to be that Trump is a businessman, and, to paraphrase US President Calvin Coolidge, the business of China is business. China, the thinking goes, can work with a swashbuckling deal-maker like Trump better than with a supposedly “ideological” Hillary Clinton.

Many people would be surprised to see Clinton categorized as an ideologue. And there is scant evidence to support the claim that businesspeople somehow embody pragmatism, given that so many powerful US business leaders are committed ideologues. The Koch brothers, for example, stubbornly cling to impractical and thoroughly debunked libertarian ideas, and numerous Fortune 500 CEOs instinctively side with Republicans, even though the US economy consistently performs better under Democratic administrations. And one should not forget Andrew William Mellon’s infamous and reckless advice to former US President Herbert Hoover on the eve of the Great Depression: “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate.”

Hubris will be a defining characteristic of Trump's approach to governance. As a consequence, policy will be pursued in fragments. The administration is a coalition of interest groups over which he will have little oversight since his own grasp of foreign policy strategy and practice is limited.
Winning an election is no guarantee of effective governance and the gap has already become evident.

The author, Yasheng Huang, was born in Beijing. Throughout many of his articles and books, I find a constant intellectual apologist for China's rise and its hegemonic way. It is not unexpected. One of the themes here is that the "detente" between the US and China regarding Taiwan has been a successful dance avoiding conflict.

"Success" is a relative term of course, and a Chinese writer of course would think that "success" means Taiwan is not an independent country (which is already is). But the ridiculous "One-China Policy", which basically turns the truth on its head out of the expediency and political correctness of yielding to China's hegemonic designs while making it clear simply taking Taiwan is unacceptable, is not success for the 23 million people of Taiwan, who only yearn to have their de facto independent and free nation recognized. In fact, the entire world, in order to appease China in exchange for dollars and opportunities in China, have basically decided Taiwan is a part of China (which it is not), is not a country (which it is), and has no standing in the world, despite the fact that its economy is among the most successful in the world, it has a democratically elected government, offers all of the freedoms (and is officially a "free country" according to Freedom House) China does not offer to its own oppressed billions, has its own currency, military, borders, post office, government, judiciary, law, Constitution, elected President, and flag.

"Success" for Taiwanese would be when the world in one voice tells China to get over it already. All that Trump did was basically tell the Emperor his new clothes are not clothes and he is a naked weakling, and he called Taiwan's leader a President, which is precisely what she is. Imagine that, the temerity to tell the truth to China's face.

A new paradigm would involve the truth, and begin a transition in which China no longer can blackmail the world to uphold its utter fraud concerning so many things and its plans to by the slowest degrees change the world into a world order with Chinese characteristics. No one knows what havoc Trump may cause, but it can't be worse than the decades of numbing political correctness ignoring the truth so Beijing's "feelings" aren't hurt (and that political correctness is something promoted on these pages by Project Syndicate, which I find quite odd indeed).

Taiwan is not a sacrificial lamb, it is a wonderful, amazing, free, democratic, vibrant nation of 23 million people, who have no intention of ever being part of the world's worst tyranny. It is difficult to understand why Mr. Huang, having spent so many years benefiting from the freedoms offered where he hangs his hat, does not see this, or perhaps it is an accommodation, like so many nations are forced to adhere to, in order to continue, another of China's requirements. Project Syndicate's pandering to China is appalling, but, sadly, not unexpected.

Certainly you have a point Prof Huang, but China's moves to ignore the international tribunal on the South China Sea, militating these man made "islands", and the failure to restrain North Korea in any meaningful manner indicates that business as usual simply isn't working in the long term interests of the United States.

A more balanced essay might equally address how China should be backing away from its more aggressive actions as well as blaming Trump, who I suspect, at the bottom simply wants to do a reasonable "deal" with China...when\their or not he is approaching this in the best way possible or not

It is China that has raised the military and diplomatic temperature gauge with its annexation and militarization of disputed territory in the South China Sea. In some ways this is understandable - southwards is the only direction in which it can project military power in its immediate area of strategic importance.

China has its own worries.

Is China where Japan was economically in 1990 (the Chinese century may have passed)? Does China fear a militarily resurgent Japan? Will Asian markets be of sufficient size to replace the US market if the US shuts China out? Will the US back up early diplomatic moves with military action if required? To what extent does internal political and social dissent/discontent constrain/distract China?

China needs a sense of humor to deal with Trump. Talk to Mexico about installing some bases, or even, ever so obliquely and ambiguously, nukes. Present performances of Chinese acrobats in Ciudad Juarez. Invent Sichuan-Puebla fusion cuisine, served buried in string fries topped with a glob of mole'.

There is no valid explanation offered here, just pandering and propaganda. The basis for avoiding contact with Taiwan is a weakness political correctness has created all these years. It is time to call a spade a spade. If the US is intimidated by China, how can anyone else stand tall against it?

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